Darkness be my friend essays

Darkness be my friend essays Setting: This book is set in fairly modern times about 1990. I know this because the teenagers speak the same way my friends and I do and dress just like people do now. I also know this because of the way they describe the country town they live in. It sounds just like the average country town in our time. I think it is set is in a country town in Australia away from the cities. I think this because of the way the place Hell is described and the way the teenagers talk like Aussies. It also says that it is Australia. When they are in New Zealand Iain asks if they will go back to Australia to help them. I think it is very important where it is set because if it were set in America or another place it would be a lot harder to be invaded. For one reason America and other places have massive armies compared to Australia and could defend their country. Another reason is that there is a much bigger population in America and other places and they would need hundreds more soldiers to patrol areas. Another reason I think it is very important where it is set is that if it was set in another country the place Hell would be described differently because Australia is the only place I know that has such amazing land features and such amazing landscapes. If it was described differently the whole book wouldnt make you feel the way you do when you read it and you wouldnt get the eerie feeling you get when they are in Hell. Plot: Darkness, Be My Friend is the fourth book in John Marsdens series consisting of Tomorrow, When the War Began, The Dead of the Night and The Third Day, The Frost, in which seven teenagers are in the middle of a violent war. Ellie, Fi, Kevin, Lee, Homer, Robyn and Corrie go camping to a remote part of their district. They find their way into a remote valley surrounded by dangerous cliffs and difficult terrain, where they are completely safe and cut off from the...

Dave the Potter - Enslaved African-American Ceramic Artist

Dave the Potter - Enslaved African-American Ceramic Artist David Drake [1800-1874] was an influential African-American ceramic artist, born into slavery under the pottery-making families of Edgefield, South Carolina. Also known as Dave the Potter, Dave Pottery, Dave the Slave or Dave of the Hive, he is known to have had several different owners during his lifetime, including Harvey Drake, Reuben Drake, Jasper Gibbs, and Lewis Miles. All of these men were in some way related to the ceramic entrepreneurs and slave holders, brothers Reverend John Landrum and Dr. Abner Landrum. In 1815, the Landrums established the Edgefield pottery-making district in west-central South Carolina, and by the mid-19th century, the district had grown to include 12 very large, innovative and influential ceramic stoneware factories. There, the Landrums and their families blended English, European, African, Native American and Chinese ceramic styles, forms and techniques to make durable, non-toxic alternatives to lead-based stonewares. It was in this environment that Dave became an important potter, or turner, eventually working in several of these factories. What We Know About Dave Not much is known about Dave; much of what we do know, scholars derived from census records and news stories. Born in 1800, Dave probably began working in the potteries in his late teens, learning his trade from the European-American potters. The earliest pottery vessels which bear attributes of Daves later pots date to the 1820s and were made in the Pottersville workshop. He apparently worked for Abner Landrums newspaper The Edgefield Hive (sometimes listed as The Columbia Hive), where some scholars believe he learned to read and write. Others believe it is more likely he learned from his owner Reuben Drake. Daves literacy had to have occurred before 1837, when it became illegal in South Carolina to teach slaves to read and write. Dave was owned for a time by Lewis Miles, Abners son-in-law, and he produced at least 100 pots for Miles between July 1834 and January 1864. Dave may well have produced many more, but only about 100 signed pots have survived from that period. He lived through the Civil War, and after the Emancipation, continued to work for the pottery, as David Drake, his new surname taken from one of his past masters. While that doesnt seem like very much information, Dave was one of 76 known enslaved African or African Americans who worked in the Edgefield District. We know far more about Dave the Potter than we do for the others who worked in the ceramic workshops of the Landrums, because he signed and dated some of his ceramics, sometimes incising poetry, proverbs and dedications into the clay surfaces. Writing and Pottery Potters typically use makers marks to identify the potter, the pottery, the prospective owner, or manufacturing details: Dave added quatrains from the bible or his own eccentric poetry. One of the earliest of the poems attributed to Dave is from 1836, a large jar made for the Pottersville foundry, on which he wrote horses, mules and hogs / all our cows is in the bogs / there they shall ever stay / till the buzzards take them away. Burrison (2012) has interpreted this poem to refer to Daves owners selling of several of his co-workers to Louisiana. Chaney (2011) has connected decorative and symbolic markings on slave-produced forms of colonoware to some marks made by Dave. Whether Daves poetry was intended as subversive, humorous or insightful is open to question: probably all three. See Koverman 2005 for a compiled list of all Daves known poems. Style and Form Dave specialized in large storage jars with horizontal slab handles, used for large-scale plantation food preservation, and his pots are among the largest made during the period. In Edgefield, only Dave and Thomas Chandler made pots with such a large capacity. Some hold up to 40 gallons: and they were in high demand. Daves pots, like those of most of the Edgefield potters, were alkaline stonewares, but Daves had a rich streaky brown and green glaze, idiosyncratic to the potter. His inscriptions are the only ones known from American potters at the time, at Edgefield or away from it. Interpretations A considerable amount of scholarship on Daves inscriptions has been amassed over the past couple of decades. Chaney (2011) discusses the politically mute but commercially hypervisible status of Daves writings, and focuses his attention on the poetic inscriptions, the somewhat subversive elements in Daves writing. DeGrofts 1988 article describes the protest contexts of Daves inscriptions; and Burrison (2012) discusses the topics of Daves poetry, as part of a broader discussion of the Edgefield potteries. Perhaps the most focused research into Daves ceramics is by Koverman (2005, 2007, 2009), who, as part of her extensive work on Edgefield pottery works has cataloged and photographed well over 100 vessels marked by Dave or attributed to him. Kovermans nuanced discussion includes Daves artistic influences and training. Sources Burrison JA. 2012. South Carolinas Edgefield district: An early international crossroads of clay. American Studies Journal 56. Chaney MA. 2011. The Concatenate Poetics of Slavery and the Articulate Material of Dave the Potter. African American Review 44(4):607-618. De Groft A. 1998. Eloquent Vessels/Poetics of Power: The Heroic Stoneware of Dave the Potter. Winterthur Portfolio 33(4):249-260. Koverman JB. 2005. The Ceramic Works of David Drake, aka, Dave the Potter or Dave the Slave of Edgefield, South Carolina. American Ceramic Circle Journal 13:83. Koverman JB. 2007. Communities of Heritage: Southern contributions. In: Potter C, editor. Craft in America: Celebrating Two Centuries of Artists and Objects: Random House. p 120-140. Koverman JB. 2009. Clay Connections: A Thousand-Mile Journey from South Carolina to Texas. American Material Culture and the Texas Experience: The David B Warren Symposium. Houston: Museum of Fine Arts. p 118-145.

Personal Computer, Desired Requirements Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Personal Computer, Desired Requirements - Essay Example He can buy a powerful computer now or buy an inexpensive computer and plan for its upgrade in the future. Some computer vendors offer leasing programs that allows upgrade of the computer every 2 to3 years. It is also worthwhile to browse the website of large computer manufacturers to see the latest technology and the price. He can also ask friends, fellow students or co-workers in similar line of work as to what computer are they using, where they bought them, if there were any problems, and whether they are happy with their choices. One can buy a top-of-the-line model with an eye towards keeping the computer for years. Some buy the basic version of the fastest computer they can afford, and add extra memory, a sound card and speakers, a DVD drive, a larger monitor, and/or a printer over time. More sophisticated applications require faster computers, more memory, more disk space, and other resources. In general, the newer the computer, the better for the owner to take advantage of the new programs, internet resources, and the latest computing and presentation applications. In the case of laptop computers, newer models are faster and lighter, in addition to offering better displays, more memory, and more disk storage. Be prepared to spend at least $1,000 to $2,000 for a general-purpose computer. There are desktop computers whose price range for anywhere from $400 to $10,000. One should budget for hardware and software such as Microsoft and Adobe products. Word processing and spreadsheet software can be purchased with most systems. There may also be need for other software for communications, graphics, and specialized projects. The mostly widely used operating systems are Windows 2000 or Macintosh. Apple computers run using Macintosh. Other brands run on Windows 2000. Macintosh is easier to set up, learn, and to use because it has more easy-to-use built-in software. DOS/Windows systems are less expensive for similar processing speed. Windows 2000, together with Linux and Unix, are more flexible as it can allow multiple users to use the same computer at the same time and/or different times; capable of supporting and utilizing more than one computer processor; capable of allowing multiple software processes to run at the same time; and allow different parts of a software program to run concurrently. The choice of the operating system and software will depend on the use of the computer - will the computer be used for basic tasks or to meet special requirements Do you intend to connect the computer to the office or school server Decide if you are better served by the PC/Windows platform or the Macintosh. Look at the system components and determine if they will suit your needs. When buying a new computer, look for a system with a Pentium 2.8 to 3.2 gigahertz (GHz) processor. The processor is considered the brain of the computer the most important part of a computer and its speed determines how quickly the processor can execute computer code. The amount of random-access memory (RAM) or system memory is another very important part of a computer system because it has the largest influence on performance of the new operating systems. One can buy as much RAM that one can afford. At the minimum, it is preferable to buy not less that 256 megabytes (MB) or 512 MB. For a Macintosh, it should be at least 256 MB. The hard drive space required is dependent on the types of installed applications. General